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Senator Gillibrand Proposes Ending Funding For DADT Discharges

02/06/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has offered up a proposal to put an end to dismissals under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, or at least she is reintroducing the idea. Under her plan, an amendment would be offered to put a halt to funding the dismissals of gay and lesbian service members. The amendment would be put into the Defense Department’s budget. The proposal is not new, but there is some hope for it. In the first ten years that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was in effect, the United States military spent approximately $36 million per year to dismiss gay and lesbian service members. A military based survey of the law’s effects estimated that the military had spent around $20 million per year. In a time of budgetary shortfalls, the fact that this money is being squandered on dismissing able bodied troops and training their replacements who are often far less experienced is a possible selling point. Aside from the bureaucratic costs of replacing each service member dismissed under DADT, there are the varying costs of training replacements and even in recruiting them, and in essence, for each gay or lesbian service member dismissed under DADT, the military has to recruit not only a replacement, but an additional person in order for the military to grow in a time of war.

Senator Gillibrand is hoping that this might be the time to cut off funding in order to get a moratorium in place until a full repeal is passed through the Congress. She had considered a proposal to do this before, but lacked sixty votes in the Senate to get it through. Offered as an amendment, it would require sixty votes to have it removed from the budget bill, and that is not an easy task to do. The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, the bill that would repeal DADT, may, likewise, be added to the budget bill in order to get it through Congress sooner rather than later. While many Senators may be willing to wait for the military to finish its survey of how to implement a DADT repeal, many inside and outside of Washington would like some form of moratorium on the discharges.

The most common reason given, at this point, for not wanting to go ahead with the repeal is that this would put a strain on the military while they are engaged in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately for those critics, the greater rationale among many civilians and politicians is that the military needs every able bodied soldier available. With the National Guard no longer filling the role of freeing up able bodied soldiers to go to the front, but instead being on the front lines, the military is under a great deal of strain due to low recruitment, loss of life, and disabling injuries.

Senator Gillibrand has been the darling of the New York LGBT Community of late for her strong support of repealing DADT and her support for marriage equality. She is currently gearing up for a potential challenge to her seat. She was appointed to replace Secretary of State Hilary Clinton last year.

Gillibrand Jumps on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Retreat